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Microbiotas are Transmitted Between Holobiont Generations

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The Hologenome Concept: Human, Animal and Plant Microbiota

Abstract

The hologenome concept of evolution relies on ensuring the continuity of partnerships between holobiont generations. Accordingly, both host and symbiont genomes must be transmitted with accuracy from one generation to the next. The precise modes of vertical transmission of host genomes are well understood and need not be discussed here. However, in recent years, it has become clear that microbial symbionts can also be transmitted from parent to offspring by a variety of methods. In an insightful review on transmission of microbial symbionts, Bright and Bulgheresi (Nat Rev Microbiol 8:218–230, 2010) divide the modes for maintaining symbionts faithfully between generations into two categories, vertical—from parent and horizontal—from environment, while correctly acknowledging that mixed modes also occur. We would like to take this approach one step further by suggesting that numerous mixed and intermediate cases, many of which are discussed in this chapter, best describe the large variety in modes of transmission which are known at present to reconstitute plant and animal holobionts. It is this continuum of modes of transmission from vertical to horizontal that makes it impractical to often place them in any specific category.

As is well known, the gastrointestinal tract is sterile in the normal fetus up to the time of birth. During normal birth, however, the baby picks up microbes from the vagina and external genitalia of the mother and any other environmental source to which it is exposed.

—Dwayne C. Savage (Savage 1977)

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  1. Faculty of Life Sciences, Department of Molecular Microbiology and Biotechnology, Tel Aviv University, Tel Aviv, Israel

    Eugene Rosenberg

  2. Givat Shmuel, Israel

    Ilana Zilber-Rosenberg

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  1. Eugene Rosenberg
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Rosenberg, E., Zilber-Rosenberg, I. (2013). Microbiotas are Transmitted Between Holobiont Generations. In: The Hologenome Concept: Human, Animal and Plant Microbiota. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-04241-1_4

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